Rib tips for lunch!

Note: the video at bottom is essential viewing for this post.

I’m having only one meal today: rib tips from Uncle J’s Barbecue on the South Side. For $12, you get a huge portion of rib tips—the best in Chicago—slathered with BBQ sauce and accompanied by a pile of fries, two pieces of white bread, and about 15 ml of “coleslaw” in a tiny plastic cup. (The bread and coleslaw are obligatory “sides” for Chicago BBQ.) The preparation is classic Chicago: cooked over hickory wood in a glass “aquarium smoker.”

The large order of tips (delivered through a revolving window in a bulletproof pane, also obligatory on the South Side) will feed me for at least two meals. To prepare for this gluttony, I had a salad for lunch yesterday and a green-pepper omelet that I made for dinner. Today I’ve just had coffee, two pieces of toast, and a banana. I’ll have a late lunch at 2 pm and then no food thereafter.

I used to frequent Uncle John’s BBQ, run by legendary pitmaster Mack Sevier, who died several years ago. Mack was a huge man and ran his operation like Charlie Trotter ran his restaurant: as a food autocracy with no room for slacking.

Mack’s death left a huge lacuna of good BBQ on the South Side, filled only by the overrated Smoque. Then Mack’s former employee, Brian Turner, became the pitmaster at Uncle J’s, which is just as good as its model but a lot closer: on 47th Street. I’ve gone there every few weeks since I found out about it.

Turner and Sevier have known each other since the ’90s, and Turner’s reverence for his former boss is sincere. “Mr. Mack,” Turner calls him. Turner tells me there was little room for experimentation while working in Sevier’s kitchen. Sevier held a specific idea of how barbecue should be cooked, so there was little deviation from the course. Turner would eventually accept Sevier’s way as the correct way, and so now he has brought Uncle John’s techniques and methods over to Uncle J’s. Using Sevier’s old smoker probably doesn’t hurt in the transfer of cosmic mojo.

What I liked best were the rib tips: chopped into thicker hunks than most places, with a crusty, well-seasoned and vaguely sweet bark. The hickory smoke is subtle but present. For those reasons, it’s always a smart idea to request sauce on the side.

And that’s what I’ll be getting, for rib tips are better than ribs themselves, and offer a panoply of different textures and flavors. Each small chopped tip is different from the last. I’ll dispense with the hot links (spicy sausages that were a specialty at Uncle John’s), as Uncle J’s don’t make them quite as good. And, truth be told, no Chicago BBQ is as good as rib tips.

I’ve eaten BBQ all over the US, including the touted rib emporia in Chicago like Honey’s, Lem’s, Smoque, and Leon’s. And none are as good as the unprepossessing Uncle J’s. In fact, I’d say the two best instantiations of BBQ in America are the barbecued brisket of Texas (best sampled at The City Market in Luling) and the rib tips of Chicago, best sampled here:

You’d pass this place right by if you didn’t know about it. Photo: Kevin Pang/Chicago Tribune

Watch this 3½-minute video, which tells all. What they’re eating at the end is a SMALL order of tips and links. Mine will be about twice as large, and sans links.

This really is world-class food at bargain-basement prices. If you’re in Chicago and want to eat, this is the place to go. It’s take-out only, so I’ll drive home real fast after I get my prize, and set to the meal with, of course, a cold beer.

Update: Here’s my lunch, accompanied by a Belgian trippel brewski. Note the white bread and pathetically small portion of “vegetables”:

Well, that settles it for me. There’s a pretty good BBQ joint around the corner from my place, and sometimes when I walk the dog that way, it smells so good, the two of us get to slobbering so bad we have to bring a big to-go platter home. Think we’ll head in that direction this evening.

As a matter of fact, it does! Plus a little bit of this and a little bit of that (cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, minced shallots, thyme, a little tarragon if you have it on hand, habanero (optional), Tellicherry peppercorns or just any black pepper, tad of cayenne pepper, smidgen of sea salt). I add a small amount of apple cider to the baking pan to help it along or you could use peach juice. I like Guy Fieri’s bbq sauce but your favourite will do. (I don’t measure anything; just wing it.)

I would just like to point out that Smoque has very good BBQ. It may be overrated but that does not mean it is not good. It is the best BBQ for people unwilling to venture into black neighborhoods on the south and west sides.http://www.smoquebbq.com/

Yes! I lived in Texas for 20 years and, finally, a food blogger agrees with me that City Market is THE place for barbecue! For the uninitiated, just stay on 183 South through Lockhart for about 30 minutes.